The Rift
by SinnamonGirl
Summary: Legolas overhears a conversation between The Lady of the Golden Wood and Gimli, and wonders.


Rift

Disclaimer: The characters in this story belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. I intend neither offense nor copyright infringement and make no money from this odd dabbling.

Disclaimer 2: This story depicts a male-male relationship.

It is said that elvish eyes were fashioned for wonder. Many times in the days of our quest, I would lose myself in staring and study, in fascination and in fancy. An outcrop of mountains will change the light that beats upon its mighty shoulders, and the changes would carry me above we nine walkers and I would know naught but the light and the shadow. As easily, starlight might steal me from my companions, or the silvering of leaves as they are turned inside out by a rain-bearing wind. But what I see before me now makes even the image – burning undimmed in my memory – of Gandalf, staff and sword held to stave off the demon of the deeps, the _Balrog_, pale. This, I never thought to see.

Ahead of me, separated by a slight distance and by the elegant and well-tended growth of Lorien saplings, there is an open glade. Sunlight spills into the clearing and pools on the ground, gilding the already aureate mallorn leaves. And in the golden light, as unalike as a lofty tower and a dusky ground-shroom stands the Lady of Lorien and the dwarf. I chide myself for the way I breathe in, sharply. Surely Galadriel the Wise can stand at the shoulder of whomever she wishes, but, of all our company – a dwarf?

I might have expected to see her walking with Aragorn, our leader now as Gandalf had fallen into darkness. Surely she knows of his love for her kinswoman, Arwen. And she would have much wisdom to give to him, he who will be a leader of men. Her wisdom might be given as well to the Ringbearer, who will come, in time, to walk in darkness, whether with members of our company or alone. But the dwarf? What words can she have for him?

Halting my river-rushing thoughts, I find that I can hear her words, and his answers, rumbling like stones summoned from a high place to roll along the earth and flatten all they touch. And yet, for all the lies I speak to myself, all the distaste I pretend, even I cannot deny that his words are fair. Other things I can yet give lie to, and do.

"Lady," he says to her with his hood clutched in his thick fingers – how can dwarves shape beauty with hands such as those? – and his dark eyes lowered in respect or awe, "For you, I might forget my own people and my mountain home – all but this quest. But I cannot do what you ask." He lifts his eyes and the light catches them. Even at the distance I can see in them colors I had not seen before, flecks of gold and green. "Forgive me," he finishes, and looks as though he waits for her lovely hands to strike him or banish him to some dark place.

Galadriel, fairest of all the elves still on these shores, laughs, and her laughter is like raindrops falling through shafts of sunlight, all beauty and gift-beyond-hope. Her voice is almost teasing when she asks, "Is he not your dear friend?"

"Aye," he rumbled. "A fragile friendship. To stand before him and speak as you would have me do… Lady, he will turn from me, perhaps from this quest." He sighs and the pain of the sound makes me flinch. I wonder that my sudden movement does not draw her piercing eyes, but she looks only at him. "And he would be right to do so."

She makes a chiding sound, and shreds of thunder-bearing clouds seem, for a moment, to shape themselves around her pale brow. "You devalue yourself, Gimli, Gloin's son. The dwarves I have met always knew the value of all they had in their possession. Have your forefathers failed to pass on their wisdom?"

He warms and brightens at her mention of knowing other dwarves. "Lady, you may know all and in your fairness, I will not say you nay. But…"

She draws a pale and fragile flower from the earth; dew slips down its sides. With nimble fingers, she slips its stem between the braids of his beard and smiles at her handiwork. He flushes and fumbles and I smile to see him, a dwarven lord, made captive by a spring bloom. "And if it will heal the great rift between our peoples, friend dwarf? What then will you say? Will you still cast into darkness this love you bear for him?"

I start, wondering. What can she mean? Gimli? I search the body of my newly-made friend as if his familiar form will give me answers. No, nothing is changed. And, yet, he is different in the light of Lorien. I thought him heavy, dour and earthbound, but I see from my unknown vantage point that he is all over muscle and that he does not sink into the earth on which he stands. His hair and beard, too, I took for the color of winter earth, drab and joyless. Perhaps it is the flower that has called the light down on him, for now his braids are bronze, with threads of fired copper woven among them. Even his face, which I took for craggy and seamed as the mountain rock in which Durin's race carves their kingdoms, seems noble now as he looks on the Lady of the Golden Wood.

I stop my pondering – though I do not shift my eyes – as he starts to speak again. "The love I bear him will carry him down, away from his kin and from his place. I would not have a form so fair allied to earth and rock, a thing all starlight and leaf sighs."

She chuckles at him. "Do all of your people turn their own poetry against themselves? I had thought dwarves gave homes to lovely things. Could you not be the sturdy sheath to his bright blade? The setting for the jewel you imagine him to be?"

He strokes the petals of the flower in his beard, and the touch is as gentle as his face is pained. "It is my dearest wish, as well you know."

She seems to know what he refers to, though it takes me a moment to realize that he has been tested as all of us were. "A hard trial," she admits, "But the Ring will try you harder, and I had to be sure. Perhaps the folly of my race made me try you harder, and for that I would be forgiven." She bows her lovely, golden head and he steps back, hands held as if to ward such a request.  
"Please, my lady, it is not right! A Queen such as you should not ask such from a mere dwarf! I am proud not to have failed your test. That is enough."

She looks up and I can see that she admires him; when long he is dust, she will carry the memory of Gimli Gloin's son in the Undying Lands, and smile. "Do not fail yourself, friend dwarf. Love such as yours should not go unspoken in these dark times."

Then she turns from him, to return along paths she had come. She takes only a few steps before she turns back and smiles her radiance on him once again. "And Legolas Greenleaf is not such a fool as to turn from the gift of a heart so rare as yours."

And then she is gone.

Gimli sat long in the golden clearing, and many shades of feeling passed over his features. Nearby and yet unseen, I watched each of them as I had watched the changes of light come over mountain stone. And in watching them, I felt wonder.


End file.
